the.com/knighting

means The act of formally making someone a knight, traditionally by a monarch tapping them on each shoulder with the flat of a sword.

from From "knight," which comes from Old English "cniht" — and here's the lovely twist: "cniht" originally meant simply "boy" or "servant," a humble lad. Over the medieval centuries the word climbed the social ladder, rising from "young attendant" to "mounted warrior" to "titled noble." It's likely related to the Old High German "kneht" (also "boy, servant"). The "-ing" is the ordinary English suffix turning the act into a noun, so "knighting" is literally the making-of-a-knight, a word whose own history mirrors the promotion it describes.